"Squeak--!!!"
The roar of the engine finally subsided in an abandoned auto repair shop filled with oil stains and the smell of rust.
The black-clad Kamen Rider braked suddenly, leaving a charred mark on the concrete with its tires.
With a jerk of his car, the "cargo" worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the back seat was flung off like a tattered sack. Tony Stark rolled awkwardly twice on the dusty ground before finally coming to a stop with a thud, his head hitting a pile of old tires.
"Cough cough cough... Damn it!"
Tony struggled to pull his head out of the pile of tires. Half a withered grass clung to his once-neat mustache, and his face was covered in blood and grime, making him look even more miserable than a homeless man.
"Hey! You masked bastard on the motorcycle! Did you learn to drive from a bumper car instructor at an amusement park? Or was your main job delivering packages, the kind that gives bad reviews?"
Tony grimaced and tried to stand up, but his legs gave way and he sat back down, leaning against the tire and panting heavily.
"Do you know that fall just now wasn't just a broken rib? You knocked off at least two percent of Stark Industries' stock price! My legal team will sue you until you're broke, right into the next century!"
In comparison, Steve Rogers ' situation is slightly better.
His red and blue uniform, a symbol of freedom and justice, was tattered and worn, but his unwavering resilience allowed him to stand tall.
He steadied himself by holding onto the wall, cautiously surveying his surroundings.
This place is more of a junkyard than a stronghold.
Disassembled car parts and tangled wires were everywhere.
"This is your 'secret base'?"
Tony glanced disdainfully at the greasy scrap metal barrel next to him, wanting to find a clean place to sit down, only to find that the only piece of furniture here was a stool with only three legs.
"I thought there would at least be a basement with a fresh air system, or a robotic arm that can automatically make coffee. It seems the entry barrier for the 'superhero' industry is getting lower and lower. Is it now just a mask and a beat-up car enough to get a job?"
"There's no air conditioning here, and no champagne," the man's voice was low and husky. "Only shelter to keep a spoiled brat like you alive."
Steve Rogers isn't as pretentious as Tony.
He found a wooden box to sit on, placed the dusty Vibranium Shield on his lap, and his azure eyes never left the black figure.
"Thank you for saving us." Steve broke the silence, his tone sincere, but the wariness of a veteran remained undiminished. "But we still don't know who you are. On the battlefield, turning your back on someone who doesn't even have a name is a grave taboo."
Does a name matter?
"In this damned world, a name is the cheapest thing."
The man walked to the corner, the only place in the garage that looked like high-tech equipment—an old-fashioned radio that was running, surrounded by piles of handwritten tactical maps.
"All you need to know is that I'm on the opposite side of Shocker. As for the rest, the less you know, the longer you'll live."
Tony clutched his side and laboriously moved to a rusty iron table, then plopped down on it.
"Let me guess." Tony casually picked up a wrench from the table and tossed it in his hand. "Your outfit looks like it was stolen from a Halloween sale, but the bio-mechanical system inside is exactly the same as that green monster's?"
Tony gave a cold laugh.
"Are you one of Shocker's? Or are you another 'perfect creation' made by that vulgar Doctor Shinigami? What, is internal strife going on at Shocker now? Or are you a failed, defective product that was thrown out for recycling?"
"I am a failure," the man said slowly. " Shocker calls that green guy ' Rider No. 1,' the ultimate weapon they've always dreamed of. And me? I'm just a discarded brick on their path to that ultimate goal."
He pointed to his chest.
"They arrest homeless people, veterans, even forgotten prisoners. They strap us to operating tables, cut open our bodies, and inject us with those mutated genes."
"Most of them died, turning into piles of rotting flesh of combatants who could only 'coo' incoherently. Only a very few survived and retained their self-awareness."
At this point, Kamen Rider clenched his fist.
"I crawled out of that hell filled with formaldehyde and the stench of rotting flesh. Now, I have only one purpose in life—to uproot Shocker, to twist off the heads of that opera-loving pig-headed professor and that expressionless, Doctor Shinigami, and kick them around like footballs."
" Anti-Shocker Alliance."
The man pulled a badge from his pocket and tossed it to Captain America.
It was a rough metal badge with a Locust pierced by a sword engraved on it.
"We are a bunch of ghosts who have crawled back from the grave. We hunt down Shocker's people in the shadows and sabotage their supply lines. If I hadn't been passing by just now, you two would have been torn to shreds by that soulless shell of Barnes."
Steve looked at the badge in his hand, tracing its rough texture with his fingertips, his expression complex.
"He's not an empty shell." Steve looked up. " Bucky's still inside, he's struggling."
"Ha!"
This time, it wasn't Tony who was mocking him, but the Kamen Rider.
"Naive." The Knight walked up to Steve. "Do you know how thorough Shocker's brainwashing techniques are? They sever your hippocampus connections and rewrite your neural circuits. Right now, he's just a killing machine disguised as your friend."
"Impossible!" Steve retorted, "Just now... just now he caught my shield! He didn't kill me!"
"That's because he's assessing the risks," the knight interrupted coldly. " Shocker's knight system has the highest priority mission instructions implanted in it. Killing you would only be a waste of time and energy, which doesn't fit the logic of 'covert operations.' Don't flatter yourself, veteran."
"Well said!"
Tony suddenly started clapping.
"It seems we have more in common than this old-fashioned person who lives in a fairy tale."
Tony limped over to the man and pointed at Steve.
"I also think that green-skinned freak is beyond saving. How about this, you give me the intelligence you have on Shocker, and Stark Industries will provide firepower support. What we need to do is very simple—find him, and then blow him to ashes."
" Stark!" Steve glared at Tony. "He's a victim!"
"My parents were victims too!" Tony roared back, veins bulging on his neck. "Do you want to save a murderer, or do you want to avenge those innocent people?"
" Bucky never intended to kill anyone! It was Hydra's fault!"